Mass Rail Closing in the Next Decade?

Drimnagh Road

Ironic we should speak of Aircoach as I have to hand that there is to be a "timetable change" on Dublin-Cork route on Monday 28th November, Could they be introducing a non-stop direct service I wonder?

Edit-just realised this is already been discussed in a seperate thread

SandyfordGuy

The way I read the timetables is that there would be a new timetable on the 29th.

devnull

The Greystones timetable is also changing the same day.

SandyfordGuy

I've posted the Cork stuff in another thread rather than clogging up this one with unrelated topics, the Greystones seems to have had a timetable adjustment also on the online booking system, they've changed it so it integrates with the Dalkey service to give the common section of a route a service every half hour for 24 hours, which makes sense really as at the moment there can be two buses in under 10 minutes to/from the airport in Blackrock and then nothing for 50 minutes. Would be good to keep this in a separate thread too.

OurLadyofKnock

CIE wrote: »

The only reason that Ireland is not like Germany or the UK is due to that small thinking.

and the fact our entire landmass is smaller than the US state of Maine and has a population smaller than Greater Manchester and we surrounded by swirly oceans and seas.

But let's not let reality get in the way of meaningless platitudes.

We had our chance to create population densitity for hardcore rail transport during the Tiger years - the Government instead turned the entire nation in a one off housing empire.

While your beloved CIE designed and are still designing empty office blocks.

Carawaystick

SandyfordGuy wrote: »

Whatever the issues about licensing, even the stopping services are not really adequate, for example the first bus from Cork doesn't get into Dublin until 10.50 and Dublin Airport until 11.15 with the last bus leaving Dublin at 7pm and Dublin Airport at 6.15pm.

Even if there is not demand for a non stop service, which I'd think there perhaps is, there should at least be a later bus to Cork after the times we have at present. Just a look at how packed the 6pm Bus Eireann and 7pm Aircoach services to Cork show this.

What is really needed is a bus which allows people to get to Dublin earlier, a later bus to Cork, ideally also serving Dublin Airport to facilitate both early flights from Dublin and later arrivals wishing to travel to Cork.

Of course IÉ supply a service that allows passengers from Dublin to Cork arrive in Cork city centre ate perfectly reasonable hours too... sher no-one'd like to be in the real capital before about ten in the morning....

robd

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

and the fact our entire landmass is smaller than the US state of Maine and has a population smaller than Greater Manchester and we surrounded by swirly oceans and seas.

But let's not let reality get in the way of meaningless platitudes.

We had our chance to create population densitity for hardcore rail transport during the Tiger years - the Government instead turned the entire nation in a one off housing empire.

While your beloved CIE designed and are still designing empty office blocks.

Well said. I just didn't have the energy to respond to CIE myself.

CIE

OurLadyofKnock wrote: »

and the fact our entire landmass is smaller than the US state of Maine and has a population smaller than Greater Manchester and we surrounded by swirly oceans and seas.

But let's not let reality get in the way of meaningless platitudes.

We had our chance to create population densitity (sic) for hardcore rail transport during the Tiger years - the Government instead turned the entire nation in a one off housing empire.

While your beloved CIE designed and are still designing empty office blocks.

Like I said; small thinking. Reality, you say? Small thinkers let themselves succumb to reality and be victimised by it (and thus start uttering "meaningless platitudes"); big thinkers shape reality. But don't let me get in the way of your efforts to have Ireland laughed at from the outside, especially since your "solution" is to continue to tear down instead of building back up (kind of worse than mere slave mentality, but one must call it as one sees it). You keep letting the European Union dictate to you and thinking that there's naught you can do about it (while blaming the national government who has been just their vassal over the years), Ireland will become balkanised in terms of transport as well as continually de-industrialised while Germany continues to enrich itself. Enjoy riding that donkey, because you won't even have buses eventually with that kind of thinking, and very few cars...first the railways, then the rest of the infrastructure.

Population density means nothing. You think that Sweden lets their average population density (half the density of Ireland) get in the way of having electrified railways running at high speeds to destinations with slightly smaller populations than Sligo, for example? Arvika, one of the last stops on the X2000 service which features electric tilt-trains running at average speeds between 90 and 108 mph, has about 15,000 inhabitants. Switch their service to something like the 22000-class running at average speeds of 45 mph or so if you're lucky, and they will not be quiet in their protestations. (Herrljunga, with limited X2000 service, has a population of only 3700. The X2000 terminates at lots of cities with smaller populations than Galway city, e.g. Karlstad, Uddevalla, Östersund, Falun.) And yes, this is on their traditional railway network; no high-speed lines have been built nor are their plans to build them, but there are plans to continue to upgrade the traditional lines for 250-km/h running.

And oh yes: stop letting the brainwash about rail freight permeate your thought. That has the potential (if used) to make far more dough than passenger service. But by all means, let the HGVs wreck the shiny new motorways until they're all full of potholes...small thinking. (The trollface does think small, yes.)

foggy_lad

CIE wrote: »

Like I said; small thinking. Reality, you say? Small thinkers let themselves succumb to reality and be victimised by it (and thus start uttering "meaningless platitudes"); big thinkers shape reality. But don't let me get in the way of your efforts to have Ireland laughed at from the outside, especially since your "solution" is to continue to tear down instead of building back up (kind of worse than mere slave mentality, but one must call it as one sees it). You keep letting the European Union dictate to you and thinking that there's naught you can do about it (while blaming the national government who has been just their vassal over the years), Ireland will become balkanised in terms of transport as well as continually de-industrialised while Germany continues to enrich itself. Enjoy riding that donkey, because you won't even have buses eventually with that kind of thinking, and very few cars...first the railways, then the rest of the infrastructure.

Population density means nothing. You think that Sweden lets their average population density (half the density of Ireland) get in the way of having electrified railways running at high speeds to destinations with slightly smaller populations than Sligo, for example? Arvika, one of the last stops on the X2000 service which features electric tilt-trains running at average speeds between 90 and 108 mph, has about 15,000 inhabitants. Switch their service to something like the 22000-class running at average speeds of 45 mph or so if you're lucky, and they will not be quiet in their protestations. (Herrljunga, with limited X2000 service, has a population of only 3700. The X2000 terminates at lots of cities with smaller populations than Galway city, e.g. Karlstad, Uddevalla, Östersund, Falun.) And yes, this is on their traditional railway network; no high-speed lines have been built nor are their plans to build them, but there are plans to continue to upgrade the traditional lines for 250-km/h running.

And oh yes: stop letting the brainwash about rail freight permeate your thought. That has the potential (if used) to make far more dough than passenger service. But by all means, let the HGVs wreck the shiny new motorways until they're all full of potholes...small thinking. (The trollface does think small, yes.)

If you live in Sweden chances are part of your very high rates go towards paying for your local railway lines whether you use them or not. Mainlines only are paid for by the state and everything else is covered by private companies and the individual small towns/cities that the trains travel through.

Malmo to Stockholm return on 29th and 30th of this month costs about €90 for 2nd class with no wifi for the 4.5 hour journey but there are much dearer journy times throughout both days. Trains are not very frequent but the lack of train services is supplemented by excellent express bus services and the farther north you go they get less frequent so there is only 2 trains on weekdays between the likes of Umea and Lulea and a journey time of over 4.5 hours for the 265km journey but both trains include bus transfers between Umea and Vannas and there are no services on sunday.

You should not try to talk up sweedish railway services until you have fully examined all the pitfalls involved. remember what you might see on the travel channels are out of date tourist promotion programs so are obviously complimentary of Swedens railways, the reality is very different!

parsi

kieran4003 wrote: »

Even if you look at the the fastest journey times now , things have improved a lot:
Dublin - Cork 2hrs 30mins

Once a bloody day !

All the others are 2h50 - 170mins to do 165-odd miles ! They nearly ran faster than that during the Emergency with rubbish coal.

parsi

bk wrote: »

Yup GoBus and Citylink's services to Galway are what they need to copy to Cork.

Clockface hourly services that run most of the day, starting earlier and finishing very late.

New modern buses with free wifi and onboard toilets.

This and a big ad campaign would start changing peoples views of bus coaches being slow, unreliable and uncomfortable.

I used Citylink to go to/from Limerick earlier in the month and found it very comfortable. By booking earlier it was cheaper than the train and also much cheaper than driving & paying for overnight parking.

The one gripe I'd have is that they didn't have toilets and there's no covered waiting area in either Cork or Limerick (I got soaked down to my subdermis ).

A couple of questions occur to me - they are along somewhat unrelated lines, but bear with me all the same.

We're cutting back on everything and hiking taxes on everything. Higher VAT, residential charge, more motor tax, higher prices for the old reliables, you name it. Longer queues for operations, bigger classes in schools, less support for kids with special needs, you know the drill. When we're doing all that, why in the name of anything rational should we keep shelling out money to keep empty trains running? I read somewhere that taxpayer subsidies to Irish Rail are costing about €200 million a year.


One of the days this coming week I've to go to a meeting in the Rochestown Park Hotel in Douglas. My starting point is a couple of hundred metres from Superquinn in Ballinteer. On the way down and back, I'll stop for a cup of tea, a sandwich and a comfort break. My meeting starts at 11 am, and I reckon I'll be in time if I leave my house at 7:30. I'll finish up at 5 pm, and I should get back to my house at more or less 8:30. I also reckon that my 510 km round trip will cost me about €50-55 in fuel.

Can someone give me a better Plan B that lets me leave my car in the driveway? Ideally, I mean a plan that costs less and gets me there and back more quickly. But I've an open mind, so I'm willing to consider a plan that does one of those things only - as long as it doesn't make the other much worse.

Anyone?

Drimnagh Road

Found this post from way back in 2006 on the original IRN board whilst searching for something else. We haven't got anywhere faster since then... by rail anyway.


THERE’S a train a-comin’ — but the car isn’t far behind, and rail bosses are worried. Iarnrod Eireann, Ireland’s train operator, is attempting to speed up its inter-city service between Dublin and Cork to ensure the journey can still be completed faster by train than car.

The direct train from the capital to Cork takes two hours and 25 minutes. Thanks to a number of road improvements the same 255km (160 miles) car journey can be completed in three hours, but this journey time is set to fall further.

Plans to continue upgrading the entire road to dual carriageway or motorway-standard have led to expectations that the travel time will fall to two hours and 15 minutes by 2010, putting motorists firmly in the fast lane.

Anxious rail bosses are now devising plans to knock more than 25 minutes off the journey time with an initiative due to start in the next five years.

“Obviously one of our selling points is that we get from city centre to city centre in a faster time than cars, and this is something we want to maintain on all routes,” said Barry Kenny of Iarnrod Eireann. “Our service from Dublin to Cork is quick but we are aware of the need to make it quicker.”

Kenny said the company wants to “dramatically improve” maximum train speeds between the cities from 160 kph (100 mph) to 200 kph (125 mph).

To achieve this, the railway will introduce two engine cars in place of just one. Trains are currently hauled from the front, but under the new plan they will be pushed from the other end as well as being pulled.

According to Kenny, feasibility studies will begin soon. The plan also involves straighter tracks, the elimination of level crossings and the renewal of signalling and train-protection systems. “A two-hour time would simply be impossible for any other transport mode in this country to even come close to matching,” he claimed.

But the Dublin-Cork train route is not the only inter-city service threatened by cars as the republic’s roads improve dramatically. The direct train from Dublin to Limerick can complete the journey in two hours and six minutes, but by road this can now be completed just nine minutes slower. With the completion of the Mountrath bypass in 2010 that time will fall further.

Dublin to Belfast is two hours by train and the same by road, while Dublin to Galway is two hours and 39 minutes by car compared with two hours and 20 minutes rail.

As part of the government’s Transport 21 plan, Martin Cullen, the transport minister, said times on the Dublin to Limerick road route will be reduced by 31 minutes, while Dublin to Galway will be shortened by 36 minutes between 2006 and 2015.

Austin Smyth, a transport professor at the University of Westminster in London, and the author of a report on Ireland’s transport plans, said that travelling by train from Dublin to Cork would not remain attractive unless the travel time is reduced. “There is scope for improvement on long-distance rail routes from Dublin if Iarnrod Eireann had more ambitious plans. The idea for the Dublin to Cork line shows what might be achieved on the network,” he said.

The road travel times are calculated by the AA and are “achievable” at anything other than peak times, according to Conor Faughnan, the association’s spokesman.

But Kenny claimed these times were unrealistic. “For a road user to beat our centre to centre rail-journey times, you would have to be breaking the law, driving at 2am, or both,” he said.

Faughnan insisted the times quoted by the AA are real and “improving all the time as more roads are developed”.

Michael Egan of the National Roads Authority said the Dublin to Cork route could be travelled at 120 kph by 2010 if cars don’t stop, because all towns along the route will be bypassed. “This means it will be possible to drive it in about two hours and 15 minutes, and that’s at the speed limit,” he said.

The National Development Plan promised the journey by car from Dublin to Cork would be reduced by 39 minutes. Before this was achieved, Transport 21 was launched in 2005 with a similar target.

corktina

5 years later, roads now much quicker and train 24 minutes slower (generally).They've missed the chance to improve the train service,it will be a long time before investment at any meaningful level is available.

CIE

corktina wrote: »

5 years later, roads now much quicker and train 24 minutes slower (generally).They've missed the chance to improve the train service,it will be a long time before investment at any meaningful level is available.

That status quo is going to decay just as quick if the economic situation doesn't get better, as well.

Nobody's missed any chance. But if you let the EU badger Ireland into raising the corporate tax rate, then that might be a bad situation indeed.

parsi

Wow. Cork > Dublin in 2h06 in 2006

Today it's 2h50.

Gee Barry that's some change alright....

DWCommuter

Deleted User wrote: »

Anyone?

Absolutely not.

DWCommuter

CIE wrote: »

Like I said; small thinking. Reality, you say? Small thinkers let themselves succumb to reality and be victimised by it (and thus start uttering "meaningless platitudes"); big thinkers shape reality. But don't let me get in the way of your efforts to have Ireland laughed at from the outside, especially since your "solution" is to continue to tear down instead of building back up (kind of worse than mere slave mentality, but one must call it as one sees it). You keep letting the European Union dictate to you and thinking that there's naught you can do about it (while blaming the national government who has been just their vassal over the years), Ireland will become balkanised in terms of transport as well as continually de-industrialised while Germany continues to enrich itself. Enjoy riding that donkey, because you won't even have buses eventually with that kind of thinking, and very few cars...first the railways, then the rest of the infrastructure.

Population density means nothing. You think that Sweden lets their average population density (half the density of Ireland) get in the way of having electrified railways running at high speeds to destinations with slightly smaller populations than Sligo, for example? Arvika, one of the last stops on the X2000 service which features electric tilt-trains running at average speeds between 90 and 108 mph, has about 15,000 inhabitants. Switch their service to something like the 22000-class running at average speeds of 45 mph or so if you're lucky, and they will not be quiet in their protestations. (Herrljunga, with limited X2000 service, has a population of only 3700. The X2000 terminates at lots of cities with smaller populations than Galway city, e.g. Karlstad, Uddevalla, Östersund, Falun.) And yes, this is on their traditional railway network; no high-speed lines have been built nor are their plans to build them, but there are plans to continue to upgrade the traditional lines for 250-km/h running.

And oh yes: stop letting the brainwash about rail freight permeate your thought. That has the potential (if used) to make far more dough than passenger service. But by all means, let the HGVs wreck the shiny new motorways until they're all full of potholes...small thinking. (The trollface does think small, yes.)

So its Sweden now and not Germany? Correct?

How many more countries (that aren't even remotely like Ireland) are you going to use as an example? In fact... ah forget it.:rolleyes:

Niles

corktina wrote: »

5 years later, roads now much quicker and train 24 minutes slower (generally).They've missed the chance to improve the train service,it will be a long time before investment at any meaningful level is available.

The latest IRRS journal notes that services on many IÉ lines were quicker in the 1980s...

DWCommuter

Niles wrote: »

The latest IRRS journal notes that services on many IÉ lines were quicker in the 1980s...

I love hearing this, but there were many of us (non enthusiast types) taking some serious sh1t a few years ago when we pointed this out.

foggy_lad

parsi wrote: »

Wow. Cork > Dublin in 2h06 in 2006

Today it's 2h50.

Gee Barry that's some change alright....

Indeed and getting back to mr Kenny's figure of 2hours 25minutes from 2006 I believe even back then this was only possible like today with one train a day which was almost non stop and would have had the road cleared to enable the speeds achieved. As for sticking a locomotive on each end lol loco and pretty pointless for the benefits. The locomotives being used are ripping up the low speed Irish track and the only remedy is getting rid of the locomotives or upgrading every mile of track and tracked.

Niles

foggy_lad wrote: »

Indeed and getting back to mr Kenny's figure of 2hours 25minutes from 2006 I believe even back then this was only possible like today with one train a day which was almost non stop and would have had the road cleared to enable the speeds achieved. As for sticking a locomotive on each end lol loco and pretty pointless for the benefits. The locomotives being used are ripping up the low speed Irish track and the only remedy is getting rid of the locomotives or upgrading every mile of track and tracked.

Agreed locos (well, 201s anyway) are probably not the most suitable for the task. But at the time though it probably would have been difficult to get funding for power cars when the 201s were less than a decade old. I think the 201s suffered from being brought in at the wrong time, i.e. towards the end of when loco hauled was in vogue. Sort of like the last steam engines BR built in 1960, nothing wrong with them per se but built too late to be of any long term use in terms of trends.

Though in saying that I'm not sure that the mkIVs being loco hauled is the problem... I mean the trains were faster in the 1980s and at best the trains would have been 071s hauling mkIIIs then.

foggy_lad

Niles wrote: »

Agreed locos (well, 201s anyway) are probably not the most suitable for the task. But at the time though it probably would have been difficult to get funding for power cars when the 201s were less than a decade old. I think the 201s suffered from being brought in at the wrong time, i.e. towards the end of when loco hauled was in vogue. Sort of like the last steam engines BR built in 1960, nothing wrong with them per se but built too late to be of any long term use in terms of trends.

Though in saying that I'm not sure that the mkIVs being loco hauled is the problem... I mean the trains were faster in the 1980s and at best the trains would have been 071s hauling mkIIIs then.

The problem seems to be the track around Kildare and limerick junction and several other places falling to pieces as trains roll over it. Many of the speed restrictions are in the Kildare and curragh area and then through the bog. Of course accidents like at cherryville junction would only have highlighted the dangers at that time of poor signalling and communication and also the awful state of trains when you consider that this accident was caused because a train ran out of fuel due to not having a working diesel gauge.

Irish rails attitude towards the rail network and their trains has not really changed that much since cherryville and other more recent disasters on the railway. Signalling and communication has improved but there is still a major incident just waiting to take more lives whether on the main lines or in a city environment it will happen sooner rather than later with Irish rail at the controls!

corktina

Niles wrote: »

Agreed locos (well, 201s anyway) are probably not the most suitable for the task. But at the time though it probably would have been difficult to get funding for power cars when the 201s were less than a decade old. I think the 201s suffered from being brought in at the wrong time, i.e. towards the end of when loco hauled was in vogue. Sort of like the last steam engines BR built in 1960, nothing wrong with them per se but built too late to be of any long term use in terms of trends.

Though in saying that I'm not sure that the mkIVs being loco hauled is the problem... I mean the trains were faster in the 1980s and at best the trains would have been 071s hauling mkIIIs then.

but they got funding for the mkk4s though didnt they? They should have refurbished the mk3s , scrapped the 201s and bought new lightweight power cars instead.. Now we are stuck with the 201s, there will be no finance for power cars in the next decade or two and speeds will HAVE to stay below 100mph, which means that the accendancy of the Motorways will continue.

robd

CIE wrote: »

Like I said; small thinking. Reality, you say? Small thinkers let themselves succumb to reality and be victimised by it (and thus start uttering "meaningless platitudes"); big thinkers shape reality.

You are confusing big thinking in business (i.e. thinking of the global market place) with building a service that meets the needs of a small population. Two very different things. Ryanair are the ultimate big thinkers in Ireland when it comes to transport. They'll carry upwards of 70 million passengers this year and are profitable.

Look at Irish Rail. They only carried 38.2 million Passengers in 2010. Dublin Bus carried 119 million Passengers. Bus Eireann 37.2 million. Of course we get no beakdown of DART, versus Suburban versus Intercity. My guess would be 20m:12m:6m. Guarantee you DART is profitable, Suburban is bear break even and Intercity sucks the life out of the whole thing.

Thinking big would be investing in services likely to deliver the greatest benefit to the greatest number of people. Based on this that's Dublin Bus. If Bus Eireann weren't curtailed by PD policy of privatization (dirty tricks aside) but not actually issuing licenses they'd probably be carrying 60m+ passengers at this stage so they should probably get some too.

Kill intercity and divert money to DART and suburban. Write off new carriages as a sunk cost cause that's what they are.

corktina

i dont think you can completely kill InterCity but is there a need for an all-day hourly service (on the Cork line) and as many trains running as there are? (elsewhere). A business hours service plus weekend student specials would cater for the bulk of the paying customers. All the freebies fill the rest of the available trains at a huge cost to the Government. If trains were limited along these lines, (in effect an enhanced semi-fast service) the 22xxx class ,which are virtually new and quite suitable, could cover these runs, and there would be no need for class 201s and mk4s, a sunk cost as you say.Economies of scale, and a better chance to break even. (we really can't afford to be subsidising the current service)

robd

corktina wrote: »

i dont think you can completely kill InterCity but is there a need for an all-day hourly service (on the Cork line) and as many trains running as there are? (elsewhere). A business hours service plus weekend student specials would cater for the bulk of the paying customers. All the freebies fill the rest of the available trains at a huge cost to the Government. If trains were limited along these lines, (in effect an enhanced semi-fast service) the 22xxx class ,which are virtually new and quite suitable, could cover these runs, and there would be no need for class 201s and mk4s, a sunk cost as you say.Economies of scale, and a better chance to break even. (we really can't afford to be subsidising the current service)

Very hard to know as Irish Rail clearly obfuscate the whole thing by not giving breakdowns for each type of service. Intuitively I wouldn't have thought the cost of additional services are that high if you have the trains and are maintaining the tracks. I would seriously question further investment in Intercity though. Don't think it is worth the investment as it won't significantly attract new passengers given convenience of motorways.

Irish Rail need to be squeezed by government to provide proper breakdowns then take axe to costs of low use services and rail paths in order to safe the good ones.

corktina

any investment in IC would need to be focused on 125mph operation. Thats not going to happen imo because we wont have the cash for many years to come. So, as you infer, we need to go forward from where we are, it's not an ideal situation to say the least!

OurLadyofKnock

CIE wrote: »

Like I said; small thinking. Reality, you say? Small thinkers let themselves succumb to reality and be victimised by it (and thus start uttering "meaningless platitudes"); big thinkers shape reality. But don't let me get in the way of your efforts to have Ireland laughed at from the outside, especially since your "solution" is to continue to tear down instead of building back up (kind of worse than mere slave mentality, but one must call it as one sees it). You keep letting the European Union dictate to you and thinking that there's naught you can do about it (while blaming the national government who has been just their vassal over the years), Ireland will become balkanised in terms of transport as well as continually de-industrialised while Germany continues to enrich itself. Enjoy riding that donkey, because you won't even have buses eventually with that kind of thinking, and very few cars...first the railways, then the rest of the infrastructure..

Believe it or not I am actually fairly famous outside of Ireland. So your "small thinking" is not relevant here.

CIE wrote: »

Population density means nothing. You think that Sweden lets their average population density (half the density of Ireland) get in the way of having electrified railways running at high speeds to destinations with slightly smaller populations than Sligo, for example? Arvika, one of the last stops on the X2000 service which features electric tilt-trains running at average speeds between 90 and 108 mph, has about 15,000 inhabitants. Switch their service to something like the 22000-class running at average speeds of 45 mph or so if you're lucky, and they will not be quiet in their protestations. (Herrljunga, with limited X2000 service, has a population of only 3700. The X2000 terminates at lots of cities with smaller populations than Galway city, e.g. Karlstad, Uddevalla, Östersund, Falun.) And yes, this is on their traditional railway network; no high-speed lines have been built nor are their plans to build them, but there are plans to continue to upgrade the traditional lines for 250-km/h running...

Dude, Sweden is a very flat country with long, straight stretches of rail line (good for high speed) with a lot of heavy industry, mining and forestry. The nature of their climate makes rail better for long distance transport in winter - which is why their main freight line runs to Narvik inside Norway above the artic circle. They also have direct rail connections into Euro now via Denmark - to supplement the ones into Norway and Finland they already had. Swedish cities are big and well spread apart from one another.

On this island we only have one major city - Dublin and small regional city Belfast, and the rest are just big towns.

Sweden is nothing like Ireland. One major factor is they have LOTS of Nuclear Power and they can electrify their lines. Ireland will never, ever have Nuclear Power because our newspapers journalists are ignorant, hysteria-inducing gob****es who like to play God. Look at the carry on of Myers and McDonald regarding a small bit of temp. landscaping in Stephen's Green for the DART/Metro interchange. The headbagers calling Joe Duffy actually having political clout in this country - while in any other country they would be ignored as hysterical cranks looking for attention. Here in Ireland all our major political parties formulate policy based on Joe Duffy callers, pathologically-insane newspaper editorials and parish priests in Mayo.

Are you honestly going to continue with comparing Ireland to modern and intelligent societies like Germany and Sweden? These countries also exist for reasons greater than indulging Civil Servants and Semi-State unions. They have a vision - Ireland has none, except to keep the public sector from throwing their toys out of the pram constantly.

CIE wrote: »

And oh yes: stop letting the brainwash about rail freight permeate your thought. That has the potential (if used) to make far more dough than passenger service. But by all means, let the HGVs wreck the shiny new motorways until they're all full of potholes...small thinking. (The trollface does think small, yes.)

Our motorways are some of the best and most modern in the world now. Motorways don't get potholes! They are not boreens which have been widened.

That's ironically is what our rail system is by the way.

For all the faults and slagging the NRA get - if there is one organisation which can look back on the Tiger years and point to real results - it is most certainly the NRA. Our road network is pretty spectacular now - even by any international standards.

One would have to go to the Third World to find a comparison to CIE.

I am not small thinking - I am seeing our nation with a clarity and for the most part - it just ain't pretty.

OurLadyofKnock

But Kenny claimed these times were unrealistic. “For a road user to beat our centre to centre rail-journey times, you would have to be breaking the law, driving at 2am, or both,” he said.

Does this guy still have his job?